Dr. Bia Labate, Ph.D

Dr. Bia Labate (Beatriz Caiuby Labate) is an anthropologist, educator, author, speaker, and activist, committed to the protection of sacred plants while amplifying the voices of marginalized communities in the psychedelic science field.

As a queer Brazilian anthropologist based in San Francisco, she has been profoundly influenced by her experiences with ayahuasca since 1996. Dr. Labate has a Ph.D. in social anthropology from the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil. Her work focuses on plant medicines, Indigenous shamanism, ceremony, religion, drug policy, and social justice. She is the Executive Director of the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines and serves as a Public Education and Culture Specialist at the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS).

Additionally, she is a Visiting Scholar at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and an advisor for the Veteran Mental Health Leadership Coalition. Dr. Labate is also a co-founder of the Interdisciplinary Group for Psychoactive Studies (NEIP) in Brazil and the editor of its site. She has authored, co-authored, and co-edited 28 books, three special-edition journals, and numerous peer-reviewed and online publications (http://www.bialabate.net).

Mark Nicolson

Mark is an Oxford/Stanford educated executive coach who grew up in the UK and now lives in Santa Cruz. For the last 30 years he has helped visionary entrepreneur, social justice pioneers and cultural leaders to get out of their own way and be in their zone of genius. In the last five years, he has helped clients prepare for and integrate over 200 MDMA or psilocybin sessions. He believes that the reintroduction of psychedelics into the mainstream will have more impact on human evolution than the development of psychology.